Foreign Medical Graduates in Andhra Pradesh, despite completing internships and clearing their exams, are on a hunger strike.

Why? Because the state medical council is refusing to give them what they’ve already earned: their Permanent Registration.

Dozens of FMGs are stuck in limbo. They’ve cleared the Foreign Medical Graduate Exam. They’ve completed internships. Some have even paid their registration fees. 

But the Andhra Pradesh Medical Council, or APMC, continues to delay their Permanent Registrations, citing unclear legal issues and personal interpretations of rules.

Students claim this delay isn’t just a matter of red tape. It’s personal interpretations of rules by the APMC Registrar that have blocked their futures, despite NMC’s circulars clearly giving state councils the autonomy to process such applications.

This wait has turned into mental harassment, and to understand the legal and policy perspective behind this delay, we spoke to one of the FMGs who is part of the strike.

All they want is the APMC to stop dragging its feet and follow the NMC’s 2022 circular in both letter and spirit. That means: accepting previously submitted documents, reversing arbitrary internship extensions, scrapping retrospective rules, and immediately issuing Permanent Registrations to eligible candidates just as other states have already done.